


Speed

by kho



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Action & Romance, Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Humor, M/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:15:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24121198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kho/pseuds/kho
Summary: What it all boils down to is this:  There’s a bus, bus 2525, barreling down Kamehameha Highway and once it reaches 50 miles per hour the bomb will be engaged.In which I recently watched Speed and realized that Steve is soooo Keanu Reeves, and of course... of COURSE Danny is Sandra Bullock.
Relationships: Steve McGarrett & Danny "Danno" Williams, Steve McGarrett/Danny "Danno" Williams
Comments: 52
Kudos: 121





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Cuz, this dialogue clearly has to happen:
> 
> \- I have to warn you, I've heard relationships based on intense experiences never work.  
> \- OK. We'll have to base it on sex then.  
> \- Whatever you say.
> 
>   
> By the way, this fic will indeed involve just as much unrealistic, over the top storytelling and ridiculousness as the original movie, aka this is bubblegum pop. It's based quite heavily on the movie and therefore I do not feel the need to do quite as much explaining as the movie did, so I condense. You don't have to have seen the movie to get it but if you haven't.... jeez why not, that movie is a damn fun romp!

“All right, pop quiz. Airport, gunman with one hostage. He's using her for cover; he's almost to a plane. You're a hundred feet away.”

Steve frowns, looking at the bombs and severed wires of the elevator then back up at his partner. “Really? Now, Freddie?”

Freddie’s smile is so broad and bright it lights up the whole room. Well. Elevator shaft. “Course now, buddy. You got somewhere else to be?”

Steve grins, shifting his gaze back down the elevator he’s standing on top of. Eight innocent people waiting for him and his partner to get them out of this sardine can, six floors lower than it had been three moments before dangling by half the cables it should be. “Nope,” he says, looking back up. “Shoot the hostage.”

Freddie blinks at him. “I. Did not expect that, I gotta tell ya.”

Steve shrugs, spreading his arms wide. “Slows him down. Non life-threatening, of course.”

“Oh of course,” Freddie says, grinning and shaking his head. “You’re a psychopath.”

Steve frowns down at the explosives, only half discharged, half the cables severed. “I don’t like it,” he says. “Why half?”

“What’s not to like, just your average sunny Monday afternoon, standing in a dank, dark elevator shaft, with a rickety old elevator under us with half a dozen pencil pushers waiting to see if they’re about to fall to their death.” Freddie squats down and waits til Steve looks up at him. “What’cha thinkin’ partner? Pull em up through the roof?”

Steve shakes his head. “I’m thinking he’s waiting for a grand finale. We need to secure this thing.”

Freddie laughs. “Sure, sure. You tie the ropes to the sides and I’ll strap on the harness. You think these guns can handle 2500 pounds,” he asks, flexing his muscles.

Steve ignores him, looking around and then up. “The roof.”

“Is above us by thirteen floors,” Freddie says, shrugging. “And?”

“There’s a crane on it, I saw it on the way in.”

Freddie frowns. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, yellow thing, it’s probably for window washing or something I don’t know, but that’s our best shot.”

Steve takes off like a shot, not bothering to wait and see if Freddie follows. Freddie always follows.

They feed the cable attached to it through the air vents and Freddie lowers Steve down the thirteen floors to hook the cable to the elevator but before they even have time to raise Steve up to the next level the charges go off and the elevator drops suddenly another three stories before the chain reaches its full length and catches.

“Jesus, pal, good instincts,” Freddie says, dropping down to Steve’s level in the shaft, helping him pry open the doors to let them out to the nearest hallway. “Looks like the 24th.”

Steve and Freddie sprint down the stairs and pry open the door to that floor and see the elevator is halfway open to them from there, and the metallic clangs of the cable that’s holding the elevator in place make Steve’s adrenaline spike with a horrible feeling that the crane indeed is not strong enough just like Freddie had said on the roof.

They pull the eighth occupant out just in time to not chop her feet off and as the paramedics look over the bruised and freaked out riders Steve turns to glare towards Freddie and nods his head. “He’s here. This is a cat and mouse game to him.”

They find their guy in the freight elevator five minutes later and are being fired on within thirty seconds. Steve points his gun down at the brunette gentleman below them and yells, “Freeze, SWAT,” but a spray of bullets opens up a hole in the top of the elevator wide enough for Freddie to fall through, bashing his head in good on the way down.

Freddie’s gun falls to the wayside and the perps sights are trained right in the middle of his eyes. The elevator starts rising as the insane man starts rattling off playful come get me lines at him and as the roof level looms closer and closer threatening to crush him between it and the elevators top. Steve does the only thing he can. 

He jumps in there with them, Mexican stand off with his gun on the guy with the gun leveled on Freddie. He tells him not to move but the guy doesn’t listen and then the guy peels open his jacket to reveal six sticks of dynamite strapped to his chest.

Arm wrapped around Freddie’s neck now the guy smiles serenely at Steve. “Surely you can guess how this is gonna go right? You lower your weapon, you let me walk out of here, we never see each other again. On the other hand, you don’t lower your weapon, I hit this button here,” he says, raising his other hand. Steve sees its a detonator now and not the gun he’d had before. “And boom. None of us see anything ever again.”

“Pop quiz,” Freddie says, suddenly speaking and startling Steve out of his staring contest with the middle aged Asian man in front of him. “Airplane Steve. 100 feet.”

Steve thinks for .2 seconds, lowers his gun, and shoots Freddie just above the knee in the fleshiest part of his thigh. 

The guy grins and Steve’s guts twist, but he lets go of Freddie. “He’s right. You are a psychopath.”

The guy takes off, and Steve goes to take off after him into the parking garage but the explosion rocks him back fifteen feet to land on top of Freddie while his head smacks against the wall.

It’s not until he’s helping Freddie pour himself into Steve’s car after a three hour hospital patch up that Steve realizes what the man said.

“He could hear us,” Steve hisses to Freddie, fingers clenching on the wheel. “He could hear us the whole time, that’s how he knew how to be one step ahead of us.”

Freddie spends the rest of the car ride bitching that Steve’s shot him and even when Steve laughs and reminds him that he literally told him to he keeps going. “You owe me,” he ends with, hopping out of the car at his house and balancing on crutches. “So much beer, so much steak. Maybe even a hand job.”

Steve waggles his eyebrows. “I’ve offered the handjob before, you said you didn’t swing that way.”

Freddie smirks and points behind him. “More like the missus wouldn’t like me swinging that way, but as payback for a bullet, she may let it pass.”

“Tell Kelly she’s welcome to join in,” Steve shouts at his back, laughing harder as Freddie flips him off behind his back.

+

Months later, Freddie’s still on desk duty because he’s still going through PT for the leg and Steve feels bad about that so he’s picking up a coffee for both himself and Freddie at the diner five blocks from the station.

“Stevie,” a booming voice behind himself says. “Aloha!”

“Mamo,” Steve says, grinning wide and setting one of the cups down to free up a hand with which to hug him. “Howsit?”

“Business is good, surf is good, can’t complain,” Mamo says, pointing behind him at the bus. “Need a ride?”

Steve laughs. “Yeah I heard you were driving buses these days, thought you said business was good?”

“Too hot for an old man like me,” Mamo says, grinning. “Got the kids running the surf stand. Bored sitting around the house tho, so… Driving.”

“I get it, I get it, keeping busy,” Steve says, nodding and waiting with Mamo for his own coffee to be ready. “Idle hands.”

“Devil’s playground, brother,” Mamo says.

“Haole! Your second cuppa!”

Steve grinds his teeth together and Mamo snickers. 

“Later Stevie.”

“Later,” Steve says, turning back to the barista. “Come on, man, I’m from here.”

“Looks like a duck,” the barista says with a lazy shrug and an easy smile, and Steve tries real hard to tamp down the low grade anger he feels at the slur. Even at 33 the moniker still eats at him, every time. “No ‘fence, brah.”

Steve’s about to answer no worries when there’s a sudden and loud explosion behind him and Steve knows before he turns that being called haole is the least of his worries today. Mamo’s bus is in flames, secondary explosions rocking Steve back from his sure to be useless attempt at saving one of his oldest, and most beloved, mentors from the flames.

The phone persistently ringing is the only thing that keeps him on his feet when he realizes Mamo is already gone, and somehow, some sixth sense is telling him it’s for him. When he answers he doesn’t even say hello. The voice on the other end makes his skin crawl with its familiarity.

“You’re dead,” Steve growls, hands clenching into fists. “You blew up, I saw you.”

“You saw me, did you,” he says, sickly slick and teasing. “You saw what I wanted you to see.”

Steve closes his eyes, scrubbing at his face. “You’re targeting me.”

“No, I targeted your surfing teacher. You I’m torturing.”

What it all boils down to is this: There’s a bus, bus 2525, barreling down Kamehameha Highway and once it reaches 50 miles per hour the bomb will be engaged. If it goes even the slightest bit below it the bus will blow and this bus is full, unlike Mamo’s off duty empty one.

“Pop Quiz, McGarrett,” the man says, and Steve’s fists clench. “What do you do?”

“How do you know my name?”

The laugh sends a chill down Steve’s spine. “You’re a hero, McGarrett, you and that partner of yours. Your face and name have been plastered all over the local news stations for weeks since that elevator save. I know much about you, Commander. It’s a pity your sister is on the mainland and both your parents are dead. I would have enjoyed using them as collateral instead. But I’ll make due with thirty people on a bus, I suppose.”

Steve almost cracks his phone his hand around it squeezes down so hard.

+

“Hold up, hold on, God damnit man, come on you know I’m right here, open up!”

“You’re late, padnah,” Lou says from behind the wheel, grinning as he opens the bus doors not wide enough for Danny to step in. “What I tell you about being on time?”

“Lou, come on man,” Danny says, beating a fist against the glass door. “I got held up, Gracie misplaced dolphin trainer Annie again.”

Lou rolls his eyes and relents, taking pity on the frazzled short man before him, misaligned buttons and all. “Again? That’s the third time in three weeks.”

Danny glares at him as he pushes past him to collapse in a seat. “She’s doing it on purpose, she thinks if we can’t find it she doesn’t have to leave me.”

“Oh,” Lou says, frowning and meeting Danny’s eyes in the large rearview mirror above him. “That’s too cute, man. Really.”

“Yeah,” Danny says, laughing bitterly. “Tell that to my ex who manages to find a way to make it my fault, every fucking time.”

Since having his license suspended and being forced to take public transportation for the next few months, Danny is afforded twenty minutes of peace on the bus each morning before walking into the hell that is his day job. Don’t get it twisted, Danny loves his own daughter more than life itself, but taking care of fifteen future teens at the day care center for the next 8 hours is not his idea of a good time.

Temporary is what it was supposed to be. Six months later after moving to this island he still can’t seem to find a better paying job with better benefits than Aloha Day Care. At this point Danny’s ready to beg the local grocery store to hire him as a bagger, just so he doesn’t have the headache at the end of the day.

On this day, his peace lasts three minutes and fifteen seconds before a honking maniac is motioning at the bus and yelling his damn fool head off. A paper lands on the windshield moments later.

“Bomb on Bus,” it says, and he hears Lou curse low under his breath as he begins to slow down.

Danny’s hand flies to his side to where his piece should be but isn’t anymore and violently internally curses out his repeated knee injuries that caused him to choose desk work for life or find a new line of work.

“Lou.”

“Sit down and shut up Danny,” Lou says quietly, wiping the paper off the windshield by using the wipers. “Don’t freak out this bus, man.”

The black jaguar swerves to the side of them, the man motioning now for the doors to be opened.

“Are you out of your mind, this guy could be the guy who put the…” Danny trails off, waving his hand, “ya know, on the bus!”

Lou opens the door despite Danny’s warning and the shortly shorn guy with the death glare and the tattoo’s poking out of his form fitting grey shirt shouts something about staying above fifty or the bomb going off.

“Don’t listen to him,” Danny yells as Lou speeds back up again.

“Does the man look like he’s joking,” Lou shouts back, and Danny turns to see the passenger in the car hurriedly grabbing hold of the wheel as the mad man in the drivers seat stands on top of the seat and then catapults himself into the open bus’ doors.

“Woah woah woah, hey hey hey,” Danny says, standing up and walking forward to block the man from entering further into the bus. “Who the hell are you and what the hell are you doing?”

“HPD,” the man spits out, catching his breath and holding onto the railing of the stairs. “Wanna move?”

Danny spreads his arms wide, blocking him bodily more fully. “And how the fuck do I know you’re actually--”

“SWAT,” the man grouses, angry eyes glaring directly into Danny’s soul as he holds up a gold badge proving as much. Danny feels a chill run all the way through him and hopes like hell this guy actually is on their side because he’s bone deep sure he could kill Danny with his hands right here and now. “Now have a seat!”

Danny takes two steps back but doesn’t sit until the man before him reaches out and forcibly shoves him into the padded bench behind him. Danny would yell and have an absolute fit about being manhandled but the man finally starts explaining.

“I’m so sorry, but I’m going to have to ask everyone to remain seated and calm,” he says, holding his badge up still for the whole bus to see. He reaches back and puts a hand on Lou’s shoulder and squeezes gently, and Danny’s surprised to see that there’s something in the touch that does indeed seem to calm Lou. 

Suddenly there’s a kid, 20 maybe 25, with a gun pointed at the guy’s head in shaking hands. “I’m getting off this bus now, I’m not going nowhere with you!”

Crewcut rolls his eyes. “Man, do I not have time for this.”

“I’m not going nowhere with you!”

“We can do this the easy way where you hand over the gun and sit the fuck down, or we can do this the hard way where i break yur arm and take it from you,” he growls, surging forward towards the kid. 

“Hey, woah,” Danny says, putting a hand to the man’s chest and halting his forward momentum. Gentling his hand movements like he’s calming a horse as he turns to face the distraught young man. “Hey, kid, listen, he’s not here for you. Nobody on this bus cares about whatever it is you did.”

“That’s right,” the guy says, closing his eyes and then nodding his head slowly, holding up a hand in placation. “I’m not here about you. I don’t even know who you are. Why don’t you just give me your gun and we’ll forget any of this happened.”

“See? You see,” Danny follows up, stepping between guy and the kid. “He doesn’t even know who you are okay? Not about you. Bigger fish to fry than you. Free pass today, okay? Come on, just gimme the gun,” he says, holding out his hand slowly. “Come on, let’s not make this any worse than it has to be.”

The thing is, he’s pretty sure the kid would have handed it over if not for the meathead jock that jumped him from behind to tackle him. He charges forward trying to grab the gun, crewcut does the same, and it’s a jumble of arms and legs and shouting until the thing goes off and shock renders everyone silent and still.

The bus swerves and it’s then Danny realizes that Lou’s been shot, and shit, shit shit shit. He makes his way past everyone to pull Lou out of the drivers seat while somehow trying to find a way to also assess the bullet wounds peppered on his chest.

Danny grabs the wheel, accelerates, and turns his head to holler for the guy to see to Lou when he sees a willowy lithe gorgeous girl execute some sort of crazy jiu jitzu move on the kid with the gun and get him locked up on the floor where they can safely grab the gun from him.

“Nice technique,” he hears dark and scary say.

“Kono,” the girl says, reaching forward and snapping her fingers in the air. “Cuffs?”

“Gonna be alright driver man,” says a large beast of a man that’s now kneeling down by Lou’s side, picking him up by his armpits. “Don’t think he hit any vital organs, just gonna hurt like hell.”

“Oh you know a lot about bullet wounds huh Kamekona,” Lou coughs out, but doesn’t struggle as the man pulls him up onto the seat beside him.

Danny’s pretty sure he’s the same guy that serves shaved ice at the beach he takes Grace to.

Crewcut stands next to Danny, locking eyes with him for a moment before turning to face the rest of the bus. “My name is Steve McGarrett and I am with the HPD SWAT team and there is a bomb on this bus.”

Danny feels all the color drain out of his face. Fucking holy fuck, he thinks. This is actually happening.

“I’ve got my team on the outside working on a plan with me but we need this bus to remain above 50 miles per hour or the bomb on this bus will explode.”

“Just uh, rip that bandaid right on off huh, will ya,” Danny mutters.

A warm hand lands on his shoulder and gives it a firm squeeze, Steve bending down and speaking in his ear. “This is not a drill. Above fifty, and don’t slow down for anything. Anything you hear me?”

“Not hard of hearing, I got it,” Danny snaps, fingers clenched around the overlarge steering wheel as his pulse raises and beads of sweat pop up on his forehead. “You SWAT guys know anything about triage, handle Lou would ya?”

It turns out to be a needless thing to say because by the time it’s out of his mouth Steve’s bent over Lou while ripping up a long strip of cloth that used to be someone’s shirt and dressing his wounds the best one can under the circumstances.

Danny weaves his way in and out of traffic, cursing and praying to himself that the people in the cars he inevitably hits aren’t injured too terribly, uselessly calling out weak sorry’s each and every time he sideswipes one of them.

“Motherfucker, motherfucker, mother fucker move move move,” he yells needlessly as he backends the corner of a minivan that brags about an honor student he hopes to God is not presently on board. 

“Aside from the cursing, you act like you’re trained for this,” Steve’s voice says from the side, and Danny startles as fingers wrap back over his shoulder. When the hell had he appeared again. 

“I actually am,” Danny grits out, swerving onto the shoulder of the road again abruptly. Steve’s hand pulls his shoulder as he sways with the momentum. “Used to be a cop.”

“Seriously,” Steve asks, Danny can feel questioning eyes boring into the side of his head. “Why used to?”

“My uh,” he says, pointing down at his left leg. “I got a bum knee. Wasn’t interested in bullshit desk work.” He frowns then, looking up at Steve. “I should probably tell you I’m riding this death trap because I got my license suspended.”

Steve nods slowly, watching him. “What for?”

Danny grins, adrenaline pumping through him causing him to giggle a little hysterically. “Speeding.”

Steve smirks back. “I think we’ll be alright.”

After about twenty minutes of insanity the HPD manages to direct them to an unused portion of highway where there will be no traffic to continue to run in to and Danny finally allows his death grip on the steering wheel to loosen.

His phone rings and he smiles at the familiar tune, immediately answering it.

Steve glares at him over his warm hello. “Are you seriously answering the phone right now?”

“Yes, Animal, now hush,” Danny hisses, holding the phone up with one hand and steering the bus with the other. It’s a straight shot anyway, perfectly safe to speak to his lifeline. “Hey monkey, I can’t talk right now, I’m so sorry, I’ll call you later, okay?”

“Wife,” Steve mouths.

Danny shakes his head. “Remember.” He turns his head to the side and lowers his voice. “Danno loves you.”

“Danno,” Steve questions, amused eyebrows raised sky high as Danny hangs up the phone.

Danny rolls his eyes. “Shutup.”

Steve frowns. “But.” He lowers his eyebrows only to raise them again. “Danno?”

Danny’s fingers clutch the wheel hard again to keep himself from doing something dumb. “I will manage to find a way to knock you out and still keep this bus above fifty if you don’t knock it off.”

“Okay,” Steve says, grinning and leaning back against the console. He is truly, stunningly, unbelievably gorgeous, Danny is helpless but to admit to himself. “Danno.”

He’s ugly is what he is. He’s ugly and stupid.

“Why is this happening,” Danny asks, changing the subject.

Steve shifts, looking away. “The guy’s crazy, I don’t know Danny, he’s just fucking crazy.”

“So you know who’s doing this,” Danny asks, looking forward, old cop instincts firing on all cylinders like he’d never left them behind. “You got a plan?”

“You hear about that elevator incident at Ko Alina a few months back,” Steve asks, bending himself down to Danny’s eye level, lowering his voice. 

“Holy shit that was you,” Danny says, nodding. “I knew you looked familiar, you’ve been all over the goddamn news.”

Steve’s jaw clenches. “That wasn’t my decision.”

“Son of a bitch,” Danny says, hitting a fist on the steering wheel. “This is about you? This whole thing is about you?”

Steve blinks at him. “Why would you--”

“Because usually there’s a reason there’s a bomb on a bus. Someone’s a target, someone’s important. This bus?” He motions towards the entirety of the bus. “Is from a section of town in which important people do not reside. This ain’t about anyone on this bus, of that I can promise you.” He looks over at Steve, sees fear and guilt and recrimination flash through his eyes before he closes back down. “But you know about it, you came and sought this bus out, you searched. Which means he’s taunting you. Which means it’s about you.”

Steve chews on his lip and stands, turning to face the road ahead of them instead of Danny himself. “I didn’t ask for them to splatter my face and name all over the goddamn television. I never consented to an interview, I never provided a picture, I wasn’t ever asked if it’s what I wanted.”

“I thought he was dead,” Danny says, softening his tone. He’s not trying to accuse the guy, though it’s clear the guy’s already accepted 100% of the blame. “The reports said he blew himself up.”

Steve’s grin is humorless and his shoulders and arms are tight with stress. “The reports of his death were greatly exaggerated it seems.”

“Oh fuck you, Mark Twain,” Danny spits out, but he laughs despite himself and reaches out to squeeze Steve’s arm. “Hey. I didn’t mean it was your fault. Crazy’s crazy, man. This is the job.”

“Yeah,” Steve bites out, lowering his head. “Tell that to Mamo.”

Danny arches an eyebrow. “Who?”

Steve doesn’t answer, just reaches down to pull out his cell phone and turn away from Danny to make a phone call.

.... tbc


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Are you out of your mind,” Danny yells, a hand shooting out to grab onto Steve’s belt loops as he lowers himself to the ground. “You’re gonna explode your head open on the goddamn concrete!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure I can finish this in 3 parts so I've marked 4 but will adjust if I do finish by 3.
> 
> Warning for canonical death, tho certainly the death does not occur as it did in the show. I'm devastated by it too by the way.

“The son of a bitch isn’t dead, and I’ve scoured all of our evidence from Ko Alina and still come up fucking empty on the who what why,” Freddie says angrily, Steve can picture him stabbing a pen onto a piece of paper like he does when he’s truly frustrated. 

“And you’ve gone through--”

“All of the mug shots in the world just about, Steve, yeah. Just what the hell are you planning to do buddy?”

Steve glances over at Danny. “For the time being? Keep driving.”

“Can you get eyes on it,” Freddie asks. “Can you talk me through what it looks like?”

Steve frowns, thinking. “It’s tied into the odometer so it’s gotta be tied into the engine. I have no way of looking underneath the bus without--”

“Beneath you,” the bus driver says, and Steve turns to face him. “The door that you’re standing on. You can look under the bus if you open the compartment under your feet.”

Steve bends down and rips the door open to see the street flying by underneath them. “Hell yes,” he says, turning around. “You, Kono,” he says, pointing at the girl who’d wrestled the gunman to the ground. “Take this and tell me what he says, him what I say, got it?”

“Are you out of your mind,” Danny yells, a hand shooting out to grab onto Steve’s belt loops as he lowers himself to the ground. “You’re gonna explode your head open on the goddamn concrete!”

“Then hold onto me,” Steve says with a quick rakish smile before he lowers his top half under the bus and twists and turns until he sees the metallic contraption. Danny’s giving him a wedgie holding him in place but somehow he knows that Danny also won’t let him fall. At least not easily. “I see it!”

Kono repeats and leans down to speak back. “Describe it.”

Steve starts to describe it until suddenly he’s being yanked back by his pants. Scrambling up to glare at Danny he growls, “What the hell are you--”

Danny’s reaching in his pocket and handing over his cell phone. “Don’t waste your breathe describing it, take a picture you idiot.”

Steve looks down at the cell phone and laughs. “You know,” he says, looking up at Danny. “You got a good point.”

He lowers himself back down and takes a picture from all four angles and then for good measure videos it as best he can. “Okay, get me up,” he yells when he’s done, and Danny and someone else yank him up so fast he smacks his head on the side. “Ow.”

Kono shrugs. “Ooops.” Hers were the other set of hands on him it turns out.

Steve settles the cover back over the hole and sits down on it, breathing heavily as he fumbles with the phone. “Put it on speaker,” Steve tells kono. She does so. “Freddie, I’m sending you four pictures and a video of it.”

“Good thinking buddy, I’m impressed,” Freddie yells back, and Steve shares a grin with Danny. “Got ‘em.”

Steve hands the phone back to Danny and crawls up to stand. “Get to the photos again I don’t know Androids.”

Danny fumbles with the phone one handed, cursing to himself about goofy thumbs and stupid smart phones until Kono reaches over and plucks it out of his hand, handing it to Steve three seconds later with the photos pulled back up.

Danny pulls Steve’s arm down so he can look as well, and despite the fact that Steve’s used to doing things on his own unless he’s with Freddie these days he keeps his hand there as he scrolls over them.

“The timing mechanism is a watch,” Freddie asks, baffled.

“Hold up, wait a minute,” Danny says, taking the phone from Steve’s grip and blowing up the picture, letting go of the wheel to do so. 

Steve scrambles to grab the wheel, bumping his hip into Danny’s shoulder as he does so. “The hell are you--”

“That’s not just a gold watch, that’s an Invicta 90242,” Danny spits out, taking the wheel back and handing the phone back to Steve. 

“You some kind of watch expert,” Kono asks, still holding the phone to Freddie between them.

“No, I’m some kind of retired cop expert and I got the same goddamn watch when I left Jersey,” Danny says, shoving his left fist up and into Steve’s eyesight. Same watch indeed. “You gave us your time so now we give you ours, or so they said to me when they tossed me this piece of shit like a $60 fuck you get the hell out, gimp.”

“He’s a cop,” Freddie yells suddenly, and Steve turns to stare at the phone like he’s expecting to see Freddie’s face there instead. “Son of a bitch, that’s why he knew all our moves, that’s why he knows so much about explosives, that’s why he hates us!”

“Check the database,” Steve says, slanting a glance of appreciation at Danny. “Get everyone checking the database, go back 5 years, 10, fuck it, 20 years, find this guy!”

“Later pal, try not to die on me,” Freddie says blithely and then the phone goes silent as he hangs up.

Steve grins. “You too buddy,” he says to nothing, pocketing his phone and reaching out to squeeze Kono’s shoulder. “Thanks.”

“No problem, brah,” she says, shooting him a cute little smile and a quick shakka before turning back to the big guy and Lou.

“We gotta get him to a hospital,” the big guy says. “He’s bleeding kinda a lot.”

“We can’t…” Steve frowns. “Whats your name, big guy?”

“Kamekona,” the guy says, big grin on his face as he lets go of the towel he’s holding to Lou’s chest to shake Steve’s hand. “Shoots.”

Steve smiles, nodding back. “You’re doing a good job, Kamekona, thank you. But we can’t get him off of here yet. We’ll have to deal the best we can with what we got.”

Danny hooks a finger in Steve’s belt loop and pulls him backwards. “Why can’t we get him off of here yet?”

Steve frowns at being yanked around yet again but leans down. “No one on, no one off, and not below 50. That’s all I got, Danno.”

Danny shoots him a death glare. “Do not call me that.”

Steve grins. “Why, I like it?”

Danny opens his mouth to argue but his eyes widen and he points. “Tell me that’s your team right there and not this nightmare getting even worse?”

Steve looks to the side where a big rig is pulling in next to them, his captain motioning to them to open the door. Steve does. “Captain Kelly.”

Kono hangs over Steve’s shoulder suddenly. “Hey cuz. Imagine meeting you here.”

Chin’s jaw tightens. “Kono, why do I always find you in the most dangerous places?”

“These two know each other,” Danny asks, voice raising to be heard over the wind.

“He’s my cousin,” Kono says, pointing over at Chin dressed all in black. “I got a lot of those but this one’s my fave.” She turns back to him. “I got a sixth sense brah. I was needed!”

Steve’s phone rings and he glances down, expecting Freddie. It’s not but he answers anyway. “Yeah.”

“I told you. No one else on or off.”

Steve whirls around motioning at Chin, pointing at his phone. “Why are you doing this, what do you want, what’s your end goal?!”

“To make you suffer,” is the answer. “Also, it's funny to watch your buttoned up cohort have an apoplectic fit.”

“Watch,” Steve says, and then leans forward to look out of the windshield. “God damnit, get the press outta here, he’s watching,” he yells at Chin, pointing at the news helicopters circling in the sky.

“Aw, come on, don’t rain on my parade.”

“Listen to me,” Steve says, gripping the phone tighter, leaning against the console by Danny. Somehow, even though he’s only known him for an hour, Danny’s become a calming influence. Which is ironic, because Danny is  _ anything _ but calm. Apoplectic was an apropos adjective. “You gotta let me get the driver off of here. He’s hurt bad.”

“I didn’t shoot him, that was young and jumpy’s decision,” the man says, and Steve thinks…. How does he know that? The choppers weren’t even there for that, they’d only arrived thirty minutes ago once it was clear the bus barreling down the highway and plowing into people wasn’t some crazy man fleeing the police but something more. “What’ll you do for me if I allow it?”

Steve clutches the phone. “What the hell do you want,” he growls, and then feels Danny’s hand on his hip, finger curled once again in his belt loop. Somehow it helps him breathe. “I don’t know what you want from me so I don’t know what I can give you, but name it. Name it, god damnit!”

“Let’s call it an IOU,” he says, and then after a moment of silence he answers back, “Yes, fine, the driver may depart the bus. But  _ only _ the driver.  _ Only him _ .”

Steve hangs up before he can change his mind and motions to Captain Kelly. “He’s letting the driver off.”

Chin turns and barks orders and Steve turns to Danny. “You think you can get us close and hold her straight?”

“I think there’s no choice in the matter,” Danny grits out, but flexes his fingers and takes a few deep breaths before bringing the bus aside the rig beside them. 

The transition of getting Lou over to the rig apparently goes to well, so of course someone has to screw it up. The kid who shot Lou, young and jumpy and apparently pissed that only Lou had permission to leave, jumped up just as Kamekona was letting go of Lou and pulled him backwards.

“Hey!” Steve yelled, pinned into the drivers seat by Kamekona’s bulk and the kid turns stricken eyes to him. “Don’t!”

“Why him, why’s he so special bruh, why does he get to go,” the kid screams, clearly jittering out of his body with nerves and spiraling out of control.

Kamekona manages to get up just in time for the kid to jump out of the bus and the blast throws Steve backwards into him. The kid, so anxious to get off he didn’t give a good God damn that he was putting the entire bus at risk, was split in two. The bus swerves as Steve lunges forward to grab what’s left of him, brain not quite tracking, and Danny grabs him by the waist.

“Hey,” Danny yells, fingers digging into his side. “Hey!”

“You stupid, you God damn stupid, you  _ idiot _ ,” Steve yells, staring at the hole where the steps used to be. He’s amazed the blast hadn’t taken both him and Danny out, or even triggered the other bomb linked in with their speedometer. “God damnit!”

“Hey,” Danny yells again, yanking roughly on Steve’s waistband, “Come on man, come back to us!”

Steve jerks his head to Danny and knows his eyes are wild, his heart beating in his throat, adrenaline and panic and fury racing through him. “I tried to…” He swallows. “I couldn’t save him, I tried to… It happened too fast, he wasn’t listening, he wouldn’t  _ listen _ \--”

“Ain’t nobody on this bus blaming you for that punk’s actions,” Danny says sharply, finally relaxing his hold on Steve and returning his hand to the wheel as Steve stabilizes himself on his shoulder. Danny’s own knuckles are white so Steve can tell he’s not as calm as his voice sounds, but Steve’s so fucking grateful he’s able to fake it because he’s about to lose it. “You listen to me. None of this is your fault, this is the job. You do the job, you do what you can, okay? You hear me?”

“Yeah,” Steve says, closing his eyes and swallowing, turning to face the windshield. He takes a deep breath and clenches his hands into fists on top of the dash and nods again. “Yeah. Do the job.”

“That’s it babe,” Danny says as Steve finally opens his eyes. “There you go.”

Steve turns to face Danny, studying his face for a moment. He cocks his head to the side and forces a smirk he’s sure he’s not quite pulling off. Says, “Babe?”

Danny rolls his eyes. “You’d prefer dude?”

Steve’s phone rings, same number as before, and Steve braces himself before answering. “It’s him,” he says to Danny and then answers. “You son of a bitch.”

He can hear a snort come from Danny, and then, “Good idea, let’s piss off the crazy man even more.”

This is what he needs though. He needs the distraction of Danny’s sarcasm to help him remember to unclench his hands from the dash, the people behind them on the bus relying on him to get them out of this. And anger. Anger, he knows how to do. Panic’s never been helpful.

“Me? You’re the one who didn’t seem to understand me when I said only the driver.”   


“Shit happens,” Steve snaps.

“Well tighten it up, Steve, because the next time shit happens I doubt your little blonde friend here will be around to calm you down.”

And that. That just pings something. Because the helicopters are long gone, there’s no one in the air up there. And even if there were, how the hell is this guy seeing the color of Danny’s hair? How the fuck does he know Danny’s who calmed Steve down?

Steve’s eyes flick to the corners of the bus. He whirls around and looks at all the windows. It’s not until he turns forward again that he notices the big wide rear view mirror and the wire sticking out of it.

“So what now, huh? What’s your move now? What do you want?” Steve asks, carefully not looking at the mirror as he tries to think of some way to test his theory without giving it away that he’s onto the surveillance camera he’s now almost certain the guys tapped into inside the mirror.

“Two million dollars, that’s what’s next.”

Steve frowns. “Two million.” He chews on the corner of his mouth. “You expect me to get you two million dollars.”

“I sure do,” the guys says. “And I’m getting bored with this. You’ve got two hours.”

Steve grits his teeth, slamming a hand on the dash and leaning forward. “There’s no way I can even get you two million, and if i could I couldn’t do it in two hours.”

“Figure it out,” the guy says, and the line goes dead.

+

The news that the highway they were currently on was under construction with a big giant missing piece in the middle comes through and Danny hears Steve making plans to do something crazy and stupid and ridiculous, asking for grade levels and distances and speeds.

When he hangs up he puts a hand on Danny’s shoulder and Danny shakes his head. “Nope.”

“Danny we don’t have a choice. There’s an uptick in the highway, if we can get this to go 80 miles and hour before we--”

Danny tightens his hands on the wheel, jaw clenching just as hard until he hears his teeth grind together hard enough to creak. “There’s always a choice, Steven. There is always a choice besides trying to do some bullshit stunt out of a goddamn movie wherein we try to jump over a missing piece of bridge!”

“Okay,  _ Danno _ ,” Steve says, leaning into his space and hissing into his ear. “Then I’m all ears, what’s your plan?”

“We get off the goddamn road,” Danny hisses back, taking his eyes off of the road long enough to look at Steve. “And don’t fucking  _ call me that _ motherfucker.”

Steve rolls his eyes. “You really think it’s a better option to try and keep this beast at above fifty miles per hour on city streets? You saw that shit show earlier, any number of pedestrians could have and probably were hurt--”

“Airport exit, 2 miles,” a female voice suddenly shouts between them, a deeply tanned arm pointing out the green sign denoting just exactly that.

“Kono, I could kiss you,” Danny says, grinning.

“Don’t tease me unless you plan to follow through, blondie,” Kono says with a big wide grin as she scruffs a hand through his hair. “Now do you think you boys can stop comparing dick size long enough to get in the right lane so you don’t miss the exit or should I haul your ass out of the seat and do it myself?”

“I think we got it,” Steve says with an easy smile, and damn him if it doesn’t make Danny’s heart do a little flip flop skipping thing when it’s directed at him. “You heard the lady.”

Steve pulls out his phone, telling the chief their plans and to clear the airport runways for a wild bus showing up out of nowhere. Danny gets in the right lane and grips the wheel tightly as Kono leans over his shoulder to tell him he needs to hang a hard left at the exit and then a hard right and plow through the double gates onto the tarmac and Danny resists the urge to ask just how exactly she knows the layout so well.

He grabs onto Steve’s beltloop as he swings the left turn left handed so Steve doesn’t pitch out of the blown up floorboards in the entrance at the sudden jostling and wonders just exactly when he’d started feeling like he needed to protect this guy like he was his partner and not just some maniac putting him and everyone on this bus in danger.

“There’s,” Steve says, pointing out the double gates as he thumbs at his phone to hang it up only for it to start ringing again. Looking up to see Danny and Kono’s twin expressions. “What, you already knew that huh?”

“Answer your phone,” Danny says, and heads for the gates, closing his eyes and preying as he plows through them. The bus for sure can handle bulldozing them down but Danny’s never really been the charge car first into gates type of a guy.

“Yeah,” Steve yells, handing Kono the phone on speaker so he can grip onto the dash as Danny swings yet another tight turn onto the tarmac.

“We got the motherfucker, Steve,” Freddie’s voice comes through, grin more than apparent and Steve’s mouth breaks out into a brilliant smile that makes Danny wanna haul off and hit him or reach up and haul him in for a kiss. “Ex cop, HPD, Kaleo. Spent the last four months in Halawa until, stunningly, he seems to have up and died in prison, Steve, can you believe that?”

Steve looks at Danny. “Let me guess. Explosion in his quarters?”

“Boy, you must be psychic,” Freddie says, and then laughs loud and long. “How’d you know?”

Steve shakes his head, grinning. “What was he in for?”

“He was a mole for the Ochoa cartel, IA busted him after that cop was found in the imu with the badge in his mouth. Meka something, I don’t have it in front of me.”

“Hanamoah,” Danny interjects, heaving a sigh. “His wife lives in my complex. IA gave her grief about the funeral until they cleared his name.”

“Yeah, well, IA’s a bitch but they got their guy this time,” Freddie says. “Or, they did anyway. Apparently they screwed the pooch on this explosion in the quarters business.”

“You got a location,” Steve asks, squeezing Danny’s shoulder like he can tell Danny’s bothered.

Amy Hanamoah was a stunningly gorgeous, sweet woman, and IA had put her through hell. With his own bitterness about his forced early retirement, he wasn’t anyone’s biggest fan, but he’d cursed his damn knee in that week because if he’d still been in the force he would have been able to investigate himself.

How Steve could sense any of that radiating off of him Danny had no idea.

He tunes out Freddie and Steve’s conversation about tracing phone numbers and burner phones and triangulation and instead concentrates on making the slow loops on the tarmac, losing himself in the repetition.

“You put a bullet between his eyes for me, partner,” Steve says, anger lacing what would have otherwise been a jovial tone when Danny tunes back in. “I’ll buy you so many beers.”

“Out,” Freddie says, and then the line goes dead and Steve turns to Danny.

“You gonna buy me beer too,” Danny asks, quirking an eyebrow up.

Steve grins, arms crossing. “For being in the right place at the right time?”

“Oh, Steven, Steven,” Danny says, poking a finger into Steve’s pectoral. “Right is not anywhere in that sentence, at all, not even in the same vicinity of that sentence my friend. So much wrongness.”

The mood shifts for the next half hour and it’s almost even possible to forget just how much shit they’ve been through in the last few hours as they make the slow loop around and around and around the tarmac safely.

The phone rings and Steve winks at Danny before answering, saying, “Yeah, beers on me, man. As much as you can drink.”

Danny laughs, and smacks at Steve’s hip. “Hey, speaker, I wanna hear the fucker got it.”

Steve answers on speaker as instructed and grins down at the phone. “Freddie, tell me it was messy.”

“Oh, it was messy,” a voice that is decidedly not Freddie rings out over the phone. Steve’s hand clenches around the phone and Danny watches Steve’s face drain of all color. “And Freddie? I’m sorry to tell you, McGarrett, he didn’t make it out.”

Kono darts forward and catches the phone as Steve suddenly bends forward, like his knees have given out on him. Danny reaches out to grab his wrist, tightening his grip until he sees Steve take two sharp breaths before straightening up.

“I’m gonna rip your fucking spine out, I swear to God. You hear me Kaleo? I’m gonna  _ kill you _ .”

"It was the watch that led him to me, wasn't it? Huh? It seemed a little hammy to me to build a bomb out of my precious retirement gift, but, you know, I figured a sign that said my name outright would be pushing it.”

“He.” Kono clears her throat, gesturing with the phone at them. “He hung up.”

“Son of a bitch,” Steve starts off with, and then repeats it, and repeats it, and slams his hands into the dash. “Motherfucker!”

“Hey,” Danny says, tightening his grip even more.

“Oh God, Freddie, no, no,” Steve says, squeezing his eyes shut and kicking back with his foot into the pole behind him, just about dislodging it and causing Kono to fall back down into the seat behind her. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

“Hey,” Danny says, jerking on Steve’s arm. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry about your partner, but we need you here. We need you here with us right now, okay? You gotta put this away for later, man.”

“Partner,” Steve chokes out, laughing as his eyes fill with tears that don’t spill over, eyes turning red around the rims. “He wasn’t just… he was my  _ brother _ , he was  _ ohana _ , he was...”

“I know, I know okay, I’m sorry babe, but--”

Steve faces him then, tortured and torn apart and heartbreaking. “We’re gonna die, Danny,” he hisses, hands white on the dash before them.

“It’s what my daughter calls me,” Danny blurts out, hand rubbing up Steve’s arm to his elbow. “Huh? Okay?”

Steve frowns, confusion replacing the horror in his eye. “Your daughter… what?”

“Danno,” Danny says, hand tightening on Steve’s arm again. “When she was learning how to speak he couldn’t say my name so she said Danno, that’s what she calls me, that’s what Danno means.”

Steve blinks at him, still lost. “Danno.”

“Yeah, babe, that’s what she calls me,” Danny says softly. “You with me?”

“That’s actually incredibly sweet,” Steve says, and there’s just the hint of the barest of smiles that flits across his lips as he blinks back at Danny. “Danno.”

Danny nods. “We’re not gonna die, Steve.”

Steve nods. “Yeah.”

“Cuz I got a daughter to get home to, huh?” He jostles Steve’s arm again. “You with me?”

Steve nods, closing his eyes. “Yeah. Yeah, Danny, yeah, I’m with you.”

“Okay,” Danny says, nodding and finally letting his hand slip from Steve’s arm.

Steve reaches over and squeezes his shoulder then as he takes several deep breaths.

“Okay,” he says quietly. "Okay Danny. Yeah, okay."

.... tbc


End file.
